


all those eyes on me (as i sink into the open sea)

by houndpine



Series: Souls!Verse [4]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Daemon Separation, Daemons, Gen, Kinda, Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22029253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houndpine/pseuds/houndpine
Summary: In which the people in Oliver's life find out that he and Bellona are separated.
Series: Souls!Verse [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/603100
Kudos: 29





	all those eyes on me (as i sink into the open sea)

**Author's Note:**

> I don't like this that much but it's been sitting around gathering dust for a long time so I figured I'd post it! 
> 
> See previous works in this series for additional information on daemons.

"What the hell, Queen!" Lance barked, his cape buffalo daemon's head lowered and her nostrils flared.

"Oliver? Sweetie?" Moira asked, worry burning in her eyes as Kalerian stamped his hooves restlessly. 

"Ollie, what's going on?" Thea was confused and on the edge of panic, Pythios restlessly fluttering his wings.

"Oliver, buddy...." Tommy's voice was serious, far from his usual carefree cheer. Desi whined softly at his feet.

Against the onslaught of questions and exclamations, Oliver didn't say anything. He curled his fingers into the fur at the base of Bellona's neck, gripping it tightly. She leaned heavily against his leg, pressing as close as she could, her eyes wide and distressed. There was an apology in her gaze, too, but Oliver didn't blame her. This was inevitable, in hindsight. He just hadn't expected it to happen like this, with everyone finding out at once. 

He risked a glance up from Bellona and saw Quentin, Moira, Walter, Thea, Tommy, and Laurel standing together, staring at him with varying degrees of anger, horror, and worry, their daemons closer to their sides than usual. Digg stood off to the side, apart from their united front. His own expression was calm and terribly understanding. Valla sat statue-still at his side, her eyes flickering warily between Oliver and his family and friends. 

They were in the Queen mansion's living room, and Oliver hovered in the doorway, twitchy with nerves, every instinct urging him to use the escape route at his back and run. He was only here in the first place because Digg had made him come home, asserting that if he didn't address what had happened immediately the fallout would be even worse. 

So he'd driven back home with John, Bellona draped over his lap in the back seat as he mechanically ran his fingers through her fur and stared at nothing in particular. John was silent the entire way back, likely anticipating that Oliver couldn't handle his questions along with those that awaited him at the Queen mansion.

Now, standing tense and uncomfortable, he waited for the flood of questions and exclamations to die down as their speakers slowly realized that Oliver wasn't saying a word, while a deep, barely audible growl rumbled in Bellona's chest. Finally, the room was quiet. 

"Please sit down," Oliver said quietly but firmly, determinedly avoiding looking at anyone's face. He didn't repeat himself when they hesitated, but eventually, Moira, Walter, and Thea sat down next to each other on one of the cream-colored couches in the living room, huddling close, a family that Oliver wasn't really part of. Tommy and Laurel slowly sat on the other couch, and finally, at Laurel's insistence, Quentin threw himself down on the end, clearly still angry. 

Oliver stepped forward a few feet, his hands clenching into nervous fists, one hand closing on empty air and the other on soft black fur. He could feel their eyes on him, but wouldn't meet anyone's gaze, instead glancing off to the side to where John still stood. He and Valla were islands of calm in the midst of the tension-filled room. John gave him a small, firm nod of encouragement and support. 

Oliver took a deep breath, cleared his throat, and began to speak. 

"Bellona and I are... we're separated. I didn't want... I didn't want any of you to have to find out like this." ]

\---

TWO HOURS PREVIOUSLY

It was a typical fundraiser dinner-- Starling's wealthy elite, dressed in their finest, moving about the large room in a subtly choreographed dance of social graces: greeting each other with bright, false smiles, their primped and groomed daemons fawning. Oliver was only sticking around rather than leaving early with Tommy because the fundraiser was intended to benefit the police force. Oliver may have taken the law into his own hands in being the Hood, but that was to punish the kind of elite criminals the police could never stop-- not all of the thieves, drug dealers, and murderers that made the SCPD so important to the city.

So he was still at the dinner, suffocating a little in his too-tight suit, hemmed in by crowds and struggling to maintain his usual level of complete awareness of his surroundings with so much information flooding his senses. Bellona stood close by, her tail twitching restlessly as she too tried to constantly scan the room. 

They were also keeping a watchful eye on Thea as she wove through the crowd, remembering the drugs they'd found on her at his coming-home party and when he'd walked in on her and her friend not-so-subtly getting high off of painkillers. Oliver and Bellona were even further distracted because, instead of just watching for threats to themselves, they also automatically scanned the people around Moira, Walter, Tommy, Thea, and the two Lances attending as well. 

Tommy was making valiant efforts at conversation with Oliver. Desi trotted around Tommy's feet, the dhole gazing bright-eyed at the many people in the room-- and at Laurel and Kazimir especially, Oliver noted. Oliver tried to respond to Tommy's remarks with the kind of easy humor that he'd been able to five years ago, but he was distracted and on-edge and his replies were often too late or fell flat. He tried to ignore the increasing frequency of concerned looks Tommy was directing his way.

The familiar clack of hooves alerted him to his mother and Kalerian's approach from behind him and he turned to say hello. She was with Walter and an unfamiliar couple, the woman's songbird daemon perched on the narrow shoulders of her partner's greyhound. Oliver mustered the best smile he could and shook their hands when his mother introduced them, hoping no one noticed the slight tensing of his muscles when he had to come too close to and touch the strangers to shake their hands. 

Oliver quickly stepped back, his hand coming to rest on Bellona's shoulders, and pretended to listen enthusiastically to yet another spiel about how much the two supported the police force and how wonderful this dinner was. 

But this time, the familiar empty words were interrupted by a gunshot, the sound amplified inside the dining room. Oliver spun around, instinctively searching for the source of the shot even as his hands reached out to push Tommy and his mother down.

"Seven o'clock!" Bellona snarled, and Oliver's eyes quickly locked onto a man across the room, his hand still raised from where he'd fired into the ceiling. His face wasn't covered, and Oliver knew that was a bad sign. If the gunman wasn't concerned about his face being seen, he wasn't planning on leaving many survivors to tell the tale, or he was simply unstable and irrational-- possibly both. 

Even as he took stock of the man who fired the gun, Oliver noticed four other armed men making their way around the edge of the room, hemming in the frightened socialites into a tightly packed circle in the center of the room like wolves circling deer, eyeing the herd for weakness. 

Oliver, his hands still gripping Tommy's and his mother's shoulders, pushed them deeper into the crowd so that they had bodies between them and the guns, Bellona growling softly at Desi's and Kalerian's heels to persuade them to follow into the center of the crowd.

Oliver turned back to get his eyes on the gunmen again and came face-to-face with Diggle. He was in full-on bodyguard mode, his eyes hard and face set. He placed a firm hand on Oliver's shoulder to push him downwards and back, just as Oliver had done moments earlier with his mother and Tommy. Oliver, though, had already settled on a fight rather than a flight response, and he ducked out of Digg's grasp as Bellona snarled at Valla. Digg cursed as Oliver dodged away from him-- and away from the safety of the crowd. 

Oliver and Bellona ended up in the space between the crowd of terrified citizens and the circling gunmen, drawing all eyes in the room to them instantly. Oliver instinctively settled into a defensive crouch as five guns suddenly swung in his direction. Bellona flattened herself to the ground, muscles bunching in preparation to attack. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, the logical part of Oliver's brain was telling him to wait for the police to arrive and keep his head down, to act the part of the helpless rich boy. But his instincts had taken over and when the man closest to him stepped forward threateningly, waving his gun, Oliver reacted without thinking. He lunged forward, knocking the gun out of his hand and following up instantly with a hard blow to the chin that knocked the man unconscious. He fell backward, his terrier daemon collapsing simultaneously beside him. 

Before the man even hit the ground, Bellona had leaped on the next man's daemon, pinning the spitting, bristling housecat under her huge paws while Oliver rushed past her to knock the man's gun aside and hit him in the gut with a punishing blow that knocked the breath from his lungs. 

Now that the men were all focused on him, Diggle as well as the cops in attendance began to quickly and efficiently herd the frantic crowd out of the rear door of the room. Oliver spared a brief glance to make sure that most of the witnesses were out of the room before he returned his focus to the next assailant and crouched into a defensive stance as the man rushed at him. 

He wasn't even really thinking about his movements as he methodically took down the gunmen one by one, simply acting on instinct. When he had sent the fourth one sprawling on the floor, his wrist broken, the fifth and final man turned tail and ran out of the room, his magpie daemon darting after him. Bellona was still grappling with one of the men's maned wolf daemon, saliva flying as they snapped at each other. Oliver couldn't wait, so he simply ran after the fleeing gunman. 

Down the hallway, the panicked man fired a wild shot over his shoulder that missed Oliver by a mile before he caught up to him, seizing him by the shoulders and twisting him to slam his back up against the wall. The man's eyes were wide and wild, and his magpie daemon flew frantically around their heads, pecking at Oliver. He ignored the bird and gave the man a shake. 

"What were you planning to do?" Oliver snarled. 

"We-- we just wanted to hurt the police!" The man winced as he realized what he'd said. "I- I mean- just stop them from getting the money from the fundraiser! That's it!" 

Oliver studied the man's face for a few more moments before deciding that he believed him. So the lack of masks was out of amateur stupidity, nothing more. He let the man fall to the floor, blubbering-- he'd already kicked the gun far away down the hall, and he could hear police sirens approaching rapidly. 

Bellona emerged from the doors he'd come out of and bounded over to him, her ears laid back. 

"Your family stayed in the room," she hissed. "Lance, too." Oliver's gut lurched unpleasantly at the thought of what everyone had seen him do-- how they'd seen that he and Bellona were trained fighters, and beyond that, they were separated. 

Oliver began to pace up and down the hallway, the adrenaline still in his system making it difficult to think clearly. Bellona followed at his heels, her tail lashing from side to side. 

Finally, the wail of a siren reached his ears, and Oliver paused mid-stride. His first instinct was to get out of there, and fast-- he was in the headspace he usually only found himself in when he was wearing the hood and carrying his bow. Instead, he squared his shoulders and forced himself to step back down the hallway towards the room the others waited in. 

Luckily for him, Digg and Valla strode hurriedly out into the hallway before he had to face his family and friends. 

Digg gave him a brief, unreadable look. "Come on, I'll drive you home." 

\---

"You're separated?" Thea asked, eyes wide. Pythios sidestepped from his perch on her shoulder to press himself into the hollow of her collarbones, a small shudder running through both of them. 

"Oh, sweetie," Moira whispered softly, her eyes filled with so much pity and sadness that Oliver had to look away. 

Tommy simply looked like he was in shock, trying to fit this new piece of information into the image of pre-island Oliver that he still tried to keep intact, pretending nothing had changed. 

Laurel stared intently at Oliver as if she was trying to figure something out. Lance had a similar look on his face, but he was clearly trying to decide whether or not to believe Oliver. There was something else on his face, and he only stayed silent for a moment longer before stepping forward, glaring at Oliver accusatorially. 

"Never mind that, Queen, I wanna know where you learned to fight like that," Lance said fiercely. 

Oliver quickly saw his mother's worry grow thorns as she turned towards the detective. 

"What are you implying, Detective?" she asked coldly. "If I'm not mistaken, Oliver's name was cleared of the ridiculous accusations you leveled against him."

Lance grumbled to himself and stepped back, his eyes still locked intently on Oliver. 

Tommy still looked like something didn't sit quite right with him. 

"He's got a point, though, Ollie," he said reluctantly. "Where did you learn to fight like that? And does it have anything to do with how you and Bellona were separated?" 

A soft growl rumbled in Bellona's chest at the question. Oliver clenched his jaw. He'd known that they'd have questions-- of course, they would, and it was only fair that he answer them. But he couldn't. He wasn't sure if he'd ever be ready to talk about those five years away, but he certainly wasn't ready now. 

"A lot happened during those five years," Oliver finally said. "A lot of bad things that I'm not ready to talk about now. Maybe not ever." He looked up, meeting everyone's eyes in turn, his gaze ending up on Digg, who gave him a small nod of support. "I know that may not seem fair to you, but I need you to trust me on this. Okay?" 

Tommy and his mother nodded straightaway. They didn't really want to know what had happened while he was gone, so it was easy for them. Thea opened her mouth to argue, but a loaded look from their mother made her reluctantly hold her tongue. Oliver knew that she just wanted to help, but he couldn't bear Thea knowing the kind of man he really was and the things he'd done. 

Lance's gaze still burned with anger and mistrust. He crossed his arms but didn't say anything, scoffing quietly to himself. 

Laurel gave Oliver a searching look before she finally nodded, slowly. 

Oliver let out a heavy sigh. He could tell that none of them were satisfied with his lack of answers and explanation, but they'd just have to be. 

"Thank you. Now if you'd excuse me, it's been a long day and I am long overdue for some sleep." 

Bellona walked close beside him as he left the room.


End file.
